Podcast
Human Nature Odyssey Episodes

New York Times bestselling author Christopher Ryan joins the odyssey to discuss human nature. What’s universal, what’s cultural, and what’s personal? Can we really change the culture we live in? And are some societies better suited to human well-being than others?

Join us for a live online conversation inspired by the Human Nature Odyssey podcast, tracing the long arc of the global battle between monarchy and revolution, authoritarianism and democracy, hierarchy and equality.

Several decades after the Cold War, Russia and the U.S. found themselves on eerily parallel oligarchic paths. In this episode, we trace how the world drifted from dreams of liberation to authoritarian control—and how a new generation began planting the seeds of liberty and equality once again.

We continue that epic struggle across centuries and continents—from the upheavals of the Russian Revolution, to the rise of fascism, the global crucible of World War II, the tense Cold War standoff, the youth protests of 1968, and the ongoing battle for power, equality, and freedom.

After the more than two centuries since the American and French Revolutions, the kings are back — or at least, trying to be. But we don’t have to be stuck in this strange cycle.

Across the world, politics is often framed as left vs. right. But where did that divide begin? This episode traces the roots back to the French Revolution and the centuries-long struggle over liberty, power, and the future of democracy.

Sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein’s World-Systems Analysis is our instruction manual to colonization and exploitation. We explore how dominant countries rise and fall, the dance between capitalism and the state, and the unexpected truth about what real power looks like.

Gather around the campfire for a ghost story about the most destructive monster in history: civilization. Through the book “Against His-Story, Against Leviathan,” we’ll explore how authoritarianism first took root in the world’s earliest cities—and how those ancient systems still shape modernity.

In the spring of 1992, twenty-four-year-old Christopher McCandless left society behind, hitchhiking 3,000 miles into the Alaskan wilderness. We’ll explore McCandless’s legacy, the conflict between self and society, community and solitude, and the concept of “wilderness.”

In this very special episode, author Daniel Quinn’s wife Rennie Mackay Quinn joins us for her first ever interview: sharing untold stories, new insights, and reflections on her life and journey with her beloved late husband Daniel Quinn.